AI Improvement: Enemy spell choice

[GeneralDiomedes]

I am posting this in its own thread so it doesn't get buried as an off topic post in another thread.

The suggestion is to improve the enemy AI by increasing the effectiveness of enemy spell choice. There are two components.

1. Give enemy casters some information on innate immunities according to creature type. For example, the enemy should know that Hold Person doesn't work on Warforged, and that Scorching Ray doesn't work on Hellhounds.

2. Give enemy casters the same 'immune' message as players (presumably due to player equipment and/or buffs above and beyond innate immunities) and allow them to switch to another spell if they encounter one. The enemy caster will not try the same spell on the player again.

I believe this would be relatively simple and cheap way to improve the AI.

Thanks to Roguewiz and Talon Moonshadow for ideas around putting some more intelligence into enemy caster spell choice.

What I can see is:

MOB trys to cast a poison on a player
MOB notices it didnt take affect.
MOB switches to a different spell.

In regards to Warforged, the MOB just shouldn't try casting the spells they are immune to. And other than having an overwhelming sense that the player is "Good", IE, Paladin, there wouldn't be a way to say "Hey, he's immune to fear! Lets not cast that spell on him"

I think the only way do this easily is to just varry the spells more.....or have the AI get some feedback.....like when I get an immune message I try something else.....let them try to hold a WF once.....then use a different spell.
(That's what I do everytime I run VON4 )

[blakbyrd]

Good idea.

Although a simpler idea to improve mob spellcasters, to me anyways and I do not mean to go off topic here, would be to allow mob casters more spells to choose from.

To me its an annoyance when mobs seem to choose to cast the same spell over and over and over again (especially when it isnt effective), as if they only have 1 spell to choose from. Like the mobs who spam hold over and over, or spam, fear over and over, or spam scorching ray, etc. Let them have more options. Although it wont really fix the issue the OP mentions, it should cause such things to happen less frequently.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Good idea.

Although a simpler idea to improve mob spellcasters, to me anyways and I do not mean to go off topic here, would be to allow mob casters more spells to choose from.

To me its an annoyance when mobs seem to choose to cast the same spell over and over and over again (especially when it isnt effective), as if they only have 1 spell to choose from. Like the mobs who spam hold over and over, or spam, fear over and over, or spam scorching ray, etc. Let them have more options. Although it wont really fix the issue the OP mentions, it should cause such things to happen less frequently.

This was definately part of the original suggestion. That they should cast more spells than the same sometimes useless ones that they do, over and over again.

Hold person on a warforged is the most obvious one. And they will try again and again and again. If nothing else it seems boring to have the same spells cast on you, even if they do work. (I only try once at the beginning of VON4)(everytime I do it )


I really want to see a smarter AI, for smarter creatures anyway. Another pet peave is that slimes and spiders always try to attack from behind, and also go after rangers and casters just like everyone else.

I want to see an AI that is different for each creature. Mostly based on Intelligence but also on the capabilities of the monster.

But to get back to the topic of spells, most monster have at least a human intelligence. They should be able to tell if a certain spell is not working and should try something else.
I wear a gr elec resist ring in VON5. Because I know they will always cast chain lighting on me. Well, it also always does not work on me.....but they will stand in front of me, within melee range even and continue to cast this spell on me over and over again.....it's almost funny. Especially if I do not fight back, and just stare at them. (strange thing is, the rest of the party seems to take a lot of damage in the quest from the same thing)(Maybe they don't need a new spell AI since so many of us never learn how to protect ourselves from their spells)


On another note, I just looked at the spell lists and tried to think of what other spells they could cast instead. Well...I'm not sure. I tried ti think of the harbor just to keep it simple.
They always cast MM, Acid burst, Cause fear, darkness, hold person, scorching ray, bestow curse, and lightning bolt. There are other spells they could cast, but none are really better than these, and most are worse.

But why does a Kobold cast bestow curse on the guy with the red dot above his head already? He can't get any more cursed (until he uses an expensive potion and than he's fair game again).
Why not cast contagion? Would be very effective in hte harbor, and would give me a reason to keep those disease immunity items I get from the harnor quests......right now there's no reason to have one until you are much much higher lvl.

Give the kobold feedback "if hasRedDot= true cast something other than bestow curse."

They already have unlimted mana, i don't see unlimited spell selection as a problem either........might liven things up a bit.
(course it would give those buff demanding melees a leg to stand on about needing every kind of buff imaginable )

[BlueLightBandit]

I'm for whatever changes they make that decrease the amount of spam-casting done.

Running WW, getting cursed, taking a potion, and getting cursed immediately afterwards is just cheap. It's like the mob never went back to melee, just spam-cast curse with no variation. I wouldn't mind seeing a timer or an ordering to their spell casting abilities, as in -can't cast curse twice in a row- or -cast curse, then cast lightning bolt-. I know the ordered casting could get predictable, but a identifier could be used in place like -cast debuff spell, cast damage spell- to prevent the spam casting of the same spell.

Most four legged dog-based creatures do the same thing... spam trip over and over and over again. It's just annoying when you're lying on the ground constantly failing trip saves, despite the fact that you're already on the ground. (Notice I said Trip saves, not balance saves, but that is another story all together)

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I'm for whatever changes they make that decrease the amount of spam-casting done.

Running WW, getting cursed, taking a potion, and getting cursed immediately afterwards is just cheap. It's like the mob never went back to melee, just spam-cast curse with no variation. I wouldn't mind seeing a timer or an ordering to their spell casting abilities, as in -can't cast curse twice in a row- or -cast curse, then cast lightning bolt-. I know the ordered casting could get predictable, but a identifier could be used in place like -cast debuff spell, cast damage spell- to prevent the spam casting of the same spell.

Most four legged dog-based creatures do the same thing... spam trip over and over and over again. It's just annoying when you're lying on the ground constantly failing trip saves, despite the fact that you're already on the ground. (Notice I said Trip saves, not balance saves, but that is another story all together)

lol i dunno, spamming Curse at you can be pretty effective at low level. Either you run around with a hat or you have to keep wasting time taking potions.

Spamming trip...same thing... Doesn't hurt to keep you down.

[blakbyrd]

I really want to see a smarter AI, for smarter creatures anyway. Another pet peave is that slimes and spiders always try to attack from behind, and also go after rangers and casters just like everyone else.

This is funny to me as well, or maybe an annoyance. Who taught the slime, or rather how could it learn, the basics of sneak attacks or backstabbing. A slime is a mindless creature. It acts on instinct to feed basically, not in how to employ specific tactics or who is weakest to attack first. Of course this is also a long running debate on slimes that goes much deeper than this discussion.

[Shadowblizmasta]

Depends on the caster whether they will know if something is immune to some of their spells or not. Yah, drow that hang around all things demonic and despise Paladins should know what they are immune to, but who's to say they know what a warforged is immune to? Unless I'm wrong and that EVERYTHING knows all about the specifics of warforged immunities...

[JelloMold]

Depends on the caster whether they will know if something is immune to some of their spells or not. Yah, drow that hang around all things demonic and despise Paladins should know what they are immune to, but who's to say they know what a warforged is immune to? Unless I'm wrong and that EVERYTHING knows all about the specifics of warforged immunities...

The funny thing is, I've had WF casters try to cast hold person on my WF. You'd think they'd at least know about their own immunities.

[Ghoste]

Lol, it's the lack of this kind of AI that makes vampires such a joke for warforged. Only thing you have to look out for is flamestrike (or comet fall if higher diff). As a caster, just run in circles around the vamp casting your damage spells, and there's not a vamp in the game that can take you.

[FluffyDucky]

The problem is enemy casters already get unlimited mana and no concentration checks. The mana I can understand (due to AI limitations) but they really should not be able to cast a spell while being repeatedly beaten over the head with a great ax. It's annoying to smack a kobold caster for 90% of his hit points and have him still get off that lighting bolt without fail. Before we do anything to make enemy casters stronger I would want to see this fixed.

All casters have a limited set of spells and I would not like to see enemy casters having access to ALL spells but they should have more than one spell (except perhaps low level casters). When there is more than one caster in a room each should have their own spell list. Caster A throws curse/lighting bolt/whatever while caster B is tossing fireballs/grease/whatever. Feedback on what isn't working may be to much effort but they should rotate through their limited spell list or randomly pick the next spell to cast.